“We’ll heal our own, and theirs after. Bind any of theirs who live for the Judgment. We’ll burn their dead and salt the ash. We’ll carry our dead home. Gods, I want a vat of ale and a bed.”
“I’ll take the ale, a scrub, and what I wouldn’t give for my lady’s arms around me. I’ll have to settle for yours.”
Mahon laid his hands on Keegan’s shoulders, and when Keegan laughed, rested his forehead on his friend’s. “Well fought, brother.”
“Well fought. And fuck me again, and you along with me, this was nothing. A scratch, a prick of a needle to what’s coming still.”
“And so we’ll fight on, heal our wounds, honor our dead. And fight on again. For Talamh, and all the worlds.”
“For Talamh, and all the worlds.” Keegan sheathed his sword. “Gods, but the taste of the kill is foul. I will dance, I swear it, on the day I never have to drink it again. But for now.”
He looked up the hill to the Prayer House. “I will see Toric and his lot are bound and taken in for judgment.”
“Taoiseach!” One of the elves he’d positioned inside the Prayer House raced to him.
“You hold the house and all in it?”
“Aye, aye, but …” His eyes filled. “We found one in a chamber below the bell tower. And three boys, just boys. Two already dead with their throats slit. His knife with their blood dripping. And he had the third sliced open before we could stop him. They were children. Just boys.”
“Does he live?”
“I killed him. I didn’t have to, I didn’t obey. I—”
“Do you think I would find blame in you for this? It’s, ah, Colm, isn’t it?”
“Aye, sir.”
And you barely more than a boy yourself, Keegan thought.
“Know there is no blame for this, and know we will seek out the family of the murdered boys. If they have none, we will take them in honor with our dead.”
He looked up the hill again, and it burned through him. Rage and grief, grief and rage building a fire that scorched his soul.
“And know this, as I am taoiseach. This house falls. Every stone of it. There will be nothing left of it, and the evil that grew inside. We will build a monument in its place, on ground so sanctified. A monument to the fallen, to the innocent, to the brave, and all who walk in the light will be welcome.”
He let out a breath. “So I have spoken.”
He put a hand on the elf’s shoulder before he walked toward the steps leading up. “Well fought,” he said, and carried his rage and grief with him.
The first stars began to gutter out when Keegan flew toward the valley. He’d ordered Mahon and Sedric to bring the valley’s dead home, assigned others to do the same across Talamh.
And he’d stayed in the south until the pyre of enemy dead went to ash under dragon fire.
The warriors he’d left there would help rebuild what was destroyed. And would raze the Prayer House to the ground.
He wanted home, and for a few hours he’d take it.
As Cróga glided down, Keegan stretched across his neck. Words were never needed between them, but he spoke them.
“Rest well, mo dheartháir. A thousand thanks for your courage and skill this night.”
Weary to the bone, Keegan slid to the ground, then trudged toward the farmhouse, where a light beamed welcome from the window.
He might have gone straight upstairs, might have simply fallen into his bed in the clothes stained with blood and sweat and smoke, but he saw light glowed in the kitchen as well.
There he found his mother and his brother drinking tea. And from the scent of it, tea with a good dose of whiskey.
Tarryn rose, and though he would have held her off, embraced him.
“I’m filthy.”
“You’re whole and safe, as are Mahon and Sedric. We kept watch.” She drew back far enough to kiss his cheek, look into his eyes. “Well fought,” she told him.
“The portal’s closed and sealed,” he began.
“We kept watch,” Tarryn repeated. “Throughout. Breen opened the Samhain fire, and all kept watch. Sit. You’ll have a whiskey. We’ll save the tea for this round.”
He sat. “You haven’t slept.”
“Nor have you,” Harken said. “I spoke with Mahon and Sedric not two hours ago. Our dead are home. Tomorrow at sunset we’ll send them on, as you will send the dead on from the Capital. As all of Talamh will. This I’ll see to.”
Painfully grateful, Keegan nodded before he lifted the cup his mother poured. “We’ll drink to those we lost, and the light that takes them in.”
When they had, Tarryn pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “Now you’ll eat.”
When she got a skillet, Harken started to rise. “I’ll fix a meal, Ma.”
She sent him a cool stare. “Are you thinking I can’t manage some eggs and bacon for my boys?”
“I’m thinking you don’t do much cooking in the Capital.”
“Sit your arse back down. You’ll eat what I give you, and like it.”
Then she set the skillet on the stove, turned to put an arm around each of them. “My boys,” she said again, and this time kissed both of them. “And after you’ve eaten, Keegan, you’ll scrub and well. You reek.”
“As I’ve been living with myself, I’m more than aware.” As he leaned into her, he closed a hand over Harken’s. “I’m having the Prayer House razed, the ground sanctified, and a memorial to the dead built in its place. They’ve betrayed us twice,” he went on when Harken simply watched him and his mother said nothing. “I won’t give them the chance to betray us a third time.”
Tarryn turned, put slabs of bacon in the skillet to sizzle. “Some on the council will object, as will others, on the grounds of freedom and of choice.”
“Will you?”
She shook her head as she selected eggs. “The child they stole and would have sacrificed would be enough. The plotting with Odran would be enough. But Mahon told us they killed three boys who’d come to serve and study.”
“And others who’d had no part in the plot, no knowledge of the blood sacrifices done under Toric’s orders.”
“Empaths can confirm all of this,” Harken said. “If you sent three, to walk and feel and look, no argument would hold.”
“I saw the young boys myself,” Keegan began, then held up a hand. “You’ve the right of it, and I’ll have that done. And there will be no more shelter and serving and secrecy for those who would spill our blood to honor Odran, or any god.”
“I, time and again, urge you to temper your anger with diplomacy,” Tarryn commented as she cooked. “But in this, let your anger lead. Will the child they stole and her family come to the Capital for the Judgment?”
“Aye, it’s arranged.”
“Good. Let them see and be seen. Let them know and be known.”
She piled food on plates, set them on the table. “Now eat. Then we’ll rest—well, you’ll scrub off the battle stink, then rest. There’s more work to be done.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
With what she’d seen in the fire haunting her, Breen slept poorly. She’d already packed what she hoped would see her through this trip east—kept it light as ordered. But she’d included the paper and pen her grandmother had conjured for her so she could continue to write.
Should the opportunity arise.
She went down before sunrise for coffee, to let Bollocks out. And worried about the dog, afraid if she tried to leave him behind with Marg, he’d somehow follow her—scent and mind.
The alternative, as she saw it, was for him to ride with her, at least for stretches of the journey. He’d gotten so big, she thought as she watched him swim in the bay. But she’d manage.
Marco came down for coffee of his own. “You’re sure about Brian, right? He’s okay.”